17 Years Ago, A Sci-Fi Masterpiece Made a Promise Movie Fans Are Still Waiting to Be Fulfilled
District 9 arrived in New Zealand theaters on August 13, 2009, followed by a wide release across the United States the next day, introducing audiences to a documentary-style science fiction thriller unlike anything most genre fans had ever seen. Directed by Neill Blomkamp in his feature debut, the film expanded on his 2005 short Alive in Joburg, with Peter Jackson backing the project as producer, which gave Blomkamp the creative freedom he needed to tell the story. Using a $30 million budget, District 9 drops viewers into a Johannesburg where a stranded alien population had spent nearly three decades confined to a militarized slum. The premise is used both to explore the technology and way of life of a strange species, and to raise essential questions about how governments deal with refugees in the real world.
District 9 became one of 2009’s most surprising theatrical successes. The film topped the domestic box office with a $37.3 million debut weekend and closed its run with $210.8 million worldwide, a return that dwarfed its production cost. Critics responded with similar enthusiasm, and the film’s 90% Rotten Tomatoes score and Metacritic rating of 81 were based on the consensus that Blomkamp had managed to use the mass appeal of sci-fi tropes while also inviting the audience to become aware of a real-world problem.
As with all great sci-fi, District 9 never sacrifices part of the movie, being highly entertaining without softening the message. For instance, Blomkamp built the alien camp directly from the history of District Six, the Cape Town neighborhood where apartheid-era authorities forcibly removed 60,000 residents decades earlier. The central plot was also inspired by the xenophobia against Zimbabwean immigrants Blomkamp witnessed firsthand growing up in South Africa. These choices give the movie its texture, while the mockumentary approach allows us to witness the small and large aggressions the alien survivors are forced to endure every day, all in the name of a supposed peace and coexistence. With war, immigration, and refugee camps still being part of human existence, it’s no wonder District 9 remains so popular.
Will District 10 Ever Be Made?
The critical and commercial success of District 9 felt like a sequel would be easy to green light. Furthermore, the movie itself left a massive loose thread that gave audiences hope. Christopher Johnson (Jason Cope) leaves Earth for his home planet after promising Wikus (Sharlto Copley) he will return within three years with a cure for the virus turning him into an alien. Fans interpreted the scene as a promise from Blomkamp himself, especially since the three-year gap fitted perfectly with the production cycle of a potential sequel. Blomkamp fed that reading himself, saying before District 9 even opened that a sequel remained possible if the film connected with audiences, which it did. The problem is that Blomkamp kept moving on to other films, from Elysium to Chappie to Demonic, each one pulling his attention further from the world he built in Johannesburg.
Blomkamp confirmed in February 2021 that a script for District 10 was underway with Sharlto Copley and co-writer Terri Tatchell, and by mid-2021 he described the screenplay as far along. The following year brought word of a completed 18-page treatment, and Blomkamp said in an interview that the film sat within the near future rather than the distant one. Sadly, that momentum stalled by August 2023, when Blomkamp addressed District 10 again while promoting Gran Turismo and admitted he was uncertain whether the film was actually getting made and unsure he even wanted to make it. The director did say District 10 would eventually get done, but since that’s the last we heard of it, changes seem low for the sequel ever happening.
On the one hand, Blomkamp shouldn’t feel forced to make any particular movie, and Hollywood has enough examples of how disappointing it is when a sequel gets made just to check a box. Still, it’s equally understandable that fans expect closure after watching a movie with an open ending that was teased by Blomkamp as the first part of something bigger. Still, 17 years later, District 10 is exactly in the same place: a sequel that fans are hoping to see one day, but which doesn’t get into production because Blomkamp apparently doesn’t feel inspired by it.
